Blackness
by Silth
Summary: Jacen Solo meditates on the galaxy, begining to feel his inner struggle with the force


**Blackness**

Blackness, swirling blackness. Its depths are deep and cold, an abyss of loss and suffering. Cold, so cold. Yet a searing heat brushes after the ice, scorching the skin. Oh, what pain! What anguish! Fear! Aggression! Death! Power! The power in his hands, the eternal greatness, setting the galaxy away from eternal depth of darkness. Swirling clouds of pitch are all he can see, put he could feel. His body ached. The consequence of right is too great, the price of perfection too high. Children, dead, sacrificed for the greater good; millions of innocents destroyed in the quest for goodness. What power in sacrifice! Fear! Anger! Aggression! The Dark Side of the Force are these.

No, no, not the blackness. Withdraw. Save. Conserve. Defend. Wisdom. Jedi. Light, stronger than darkness, supported by the hearts of all. Preserve their rights, save their lives. Pain is everlasting. No! Pain is perfect. No! You are weak. Only through sacrifice can you achieve power. Adventure, power, excitement? A Jedi does crave such things. You are no Jedi; that is no more than a mask. I defend the weak. I protect the helpless. You are as arrogant as you are stupid; do you not know where we are? No. We visited your grandfather as such, your uncle, and your great grand father. I have no great grand father! No, not to your knowledge, but all embraced us. No! It is inevitable, you are us, we are you. And who am I? You will see, in time, in good time.

What is this place? You. Us. Them. Look into the blackness, see our future. Images of people, undefined, undirected. Now clearer; No! Luke, decapitated, lying in the muck of a Coruscanti sewer. Blackness. Jaina, body broken, below the sobbing form of Zekk. Blackness. Ben, floating in space, his face bloated and purple with decompression. Blackness. Mara's body, burn hole in her chest, buried beneath piles of rubble. Blackness. Han and Leia, the Noghri, 3P0, R2, crashed, melting in the burning Millennium Falcon. Blackness. Tenel Ka, burned, not breathing, and Alana shaking her shoulder, crying. No! No! No! Alana! And the ceiling collapses on his daughter. Blackness. Then, he, standing above those twisted forms, starring at the stars. Two suns, like eyes, appear, and the whole of the galaxy itself forms a face. Mine, it says, Mine!

"Nooooo!" Jacen Solo screamed, and his body went into spasms. A cold sweat covered him; cold, yet searing hot. His breath was heavy, terrified. His eyes were clenched, his fist were tight. Cold Dark Side energy pounded in his chest, matching the racing pace of his heart. He forced his eyes open, and saw the state of his room. The dresser the one corner was knocked over, its contents strewn across the floor. His night stand was on the wrong side of his room, smashed, as if squeezed by a giant hand. Jacen rolled out of the twisted sheets and fell to the floor, where he stayed for a moment. Only a dream, he told himself, only a dream. He got up into meditation position, in an attempt to center himself. In the morning he and Ben would be heading to a factory on Addumar, and he had to be prepared, or so he told himself.

Jacen forced the anger from his mind, pushed aside the fear and rage, and surrendered to the flow of the Force. Using a technique of the Dathomir Jedi, he slowed his heart, and cleansed the selfishness from his mind. The future is always in motion; had his dream been a prophesy or not didn't matter. Care for his own friends over the majority is misuse of power, is evil. But Alana, Tenel Ka…No. Sacrifice is the way to perfection. Through his years of wandering, that was the one thing that Jacen learned more acutely than any lesson. Only through sacrifice can one set the right course, keep the Galaxy in order. That was a problem with the Jedi, not willing enough to sacrifice, too concerned with individuals over the whole. The Sith were the opposite, too willing to kill, to enjoy suffering. Jacen had to find the middle ground. He had to be the median, to keep the Galaxy in order, so they do not fall into blackness.


End file.
